On Thursday, May 20, 1999 the full APPROPRIATIONS
COMMITTEE of the U.S. House of Representatives will begin the "markup" of the
appropriations bill for "Treasury, Postal and General Government"
appropriations, which passed out of subcommittee on Friday.

That bill includes an amendment, sponsored by
Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard of California and Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia,
which represents a major potential victory for the prevention and reduction of underage
drinking. Essentially, the amendment changes the authorizing legislation for the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) to specifically allow ONDCP to begin
including alcohol prevention messages in all of its anti-drug work, particularly in its
billion-dollar youth anti-drug media campaign.

Until now, the Drug Czar, General Barry McCaffrey, has
claimed that he is prevented by law from working on underage drinking issues. This
legislative change would remove a significant obstacle to mounting a major media campaign
to prevent underage alcohol use.

UNFORTUNATELY, we believe that the beer industry and
some of its congressional allies will try to delete the Roybal-Allard/Wolf language when
the full committee considers the bill on Thursday.

For that reason, we strongly urge you to help us
contact all members of the Appropriations Committee with a clear message "to
oppose any efforts to delete the Wolf-Roybal-Allard amendment on underage drinking from
the subcommittee markup."

A complete list of members of the
Appropriations Committee, who can be contacted at the main House of Representatives phone
number (202-224-3121), follows: